The main question is what behavior is being introduced. I haven't researched deeply, but apparently the add-on does nothing until the user opts-in on studies.
Yeah, add-ons from Mozilla merits the same trust as the browser. But this cuts both ways, this stuff undermines my and probably more people's trust in the browser.
“Firefox worked with the Mr. Robot team to create a custom experience that would surprise and delight fans of the show and our users. It’s especially important to call out that this collaboration does not compromise our principles or values regarding privacy. The experience does not collect or share any data,” Jascha Kaykas-Wolff, chief marketing officer of Mozilla, said in a statement to Gizmodo. “The experience was kept under wraps to be introduced at the conclusion of the season of Mr. Robot. We gave Mr. Robot fans a unique mystery to solve to deepen their connection and engagement with the show and is only available in Firefox.”
This is horrible. They pushed out this crap under false pretenses as a study and obfuscated it. Don't talk the ethics talk if you're not prepared to do the ethics walk.
The problem is that Mozilla is a good company, that has had a true net positive effect on the world, especially in tech, and continues to do so today with wonderful projects like Rust etc.
If Mozilla were a shitty company, we could all simply dismiss Firefox and get on with our day. But Mozilla is not a shitty company and the fact they keep shooting themselves in the foot like GP said, the fact they are completely out of touch with their userbase, that they cannot see the OBVIOUS problems with this addon even after the Pocket debacle, is ridiculous.
Forking a project, and adding features and removing pulls that you don't want and/or need is kinda the idea behind the whole 'open source' thing.. cause what else would you do with the source code, but compile it.
Speaking of Firefox, a build or two ago, without warning, Firefox deprecated (broke) every add-on. Because [insert-old-architecture-security-justification]. It's not like anybody was doing anything real with a browser anyway.
This design decision is behind a large part of the performance improvement in 57.
Yes I'm sad, I lost some of my favourite addons as well. But this move was announced well in advance and it had a serious technical reason behind it.
In a difficult situation, Mozilla made a tough decision that is good in the long run and that benefits all its users. Crying "fork!" over it is so blind it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
> So if someone forks over 1 change or 10 they are still libre to do it, or is that passe?
It's nonsense. Doesn't mean they can't do it, doesn't mean it's not nonsense. Furthermore, in some situations, forks can be harmful to the overall health of an already fragile ecosystem. They're not free of externalities.